Stage 3 - February 20: Modesto - San José, 103 mi / 152.2km

Leipheimer takes ownership in California

Gesink helps Levi, nets own stage win

Defending tour champion Levi Leipheimer (Astana) got to work on today's first
real climbing stage - a tough parcours with five rated climbs, including the
hors category Mt. Hamilton and tough Sierra Road climbs. Like the past two years,
Leipheimer was alone with Robert Gesink (Rabobank) over the top of Sierra Road,
just 18 miles from the finish in downtown San Jose. The two had worked out a
partnership before and rode it all the way to the finish, with Gesink taking
the stage win, while Leipheimer claimed the leader's jersey.

"It was a hard stage...hard stage," an out-of-breath Leipheimer told Cyclingnews
just after rolling to a stop. "They told us we had over a minute but I had my
doubts because I had been in this position before. It's a long way from the
top - we need a mountaintop finish in this race! Robert was amazing. I predicted
last night that he would be my ally. I even spoke to him last night and it went
to perfection. We put a lot into it and 12 seconds... it was worth it, I'll
take that."

"When you become professional only professional wins count and I've had one
win in the Tour of Belgium," said Gesink about his previous palmares. "This
one is great because the field of riders here is much better over here."

"I was planning to get away with Levi because if I go with other riders I still
have to sprint in the end and I'm not the kind of sprinter who is sure to win
on a flat course like this," Gesink said. "I had to be with Levi for it to be
possible for me to win here. That's why I started riding hard and my team-mates
started riding hard and then I took over and tried to drop the other guys to
try to bring it down to just the two of us."

"At one moment he and I had a team-mate and I thought it best to keep it together,"
Leipheimer said about Gesink's acceleration on Sierra Road. "I tried to tell
him that but he was really interested in the stage win, so I understand why
he hit the gas. I was content just to follow, he was going really good and it
had been a really hard stage. Mt. Hamilton was a real climb. It was awesome."

Down the descent of Sierra Road and onto the flats of outer San Jose, the
two held a slim 45 second lead that slowly began to dwindle as Slipstream-Chipotle
and CSC chased in earnest. "Levi and I just screamed at each other to push harder
to make it to the finish line before the other guys," Gesink said. "There wasn't
really a lot of talking it was just riding hard to get to the finish as fast
as possible. [David] Zabriskie, [Fabian] Cancellara and [David] Millar were
behind me but I didn't know that."

"It's more like the kind of information that the team director doesn't give
you because it wouldn't help me a lot knowing they were back there," Gesink
laughed. "The director only told me the time and added about 10 seconds on top
of that to keep me motivated and riding. That's the way it goes. I didn't know
they were behind me but now I know and I realize what a good effort we did."

Before that, down the descent of Mt. Hamilton, High Road's George Hincapie
tried to spoil the day - using his impressive bike handling skills to escape
the leaders on the highly technical and dangerous descent. It was even more
impressive that Hincapie had been dropped before the Mt. Hamilton KOM and then
held a maximum 45 second lead all the way from the bottom of Mt. Hamilton to
the start of the Sierra Road climb, nearly 25km. This effort earned him the
most aggressive rider of the day.

The early surprise on the day was the abandonment by race leader Tyler Farrar
(Slipstream-Chipotle). The young sprinter had difficulty on the first climb
of the day, losing contact. He managed to catch back on, but then dropped hard
on the second KOM. Director sportif Jonathan Vaughters said Farrar was suffering
from a virus of some sort.

"It's from a couple of days ago," he said. "It started out with [Steven] Cozza
and then went to Tyler. It could just be a stomach virus - 20 percent of the
field has it, [Tomas] Danielson too."

Despite the unlucky loss of Farrar, Vaughters was still pleased with his team's
performance, particularly with David Millar and Dave Zabriskie finishing in
the lead chase group. "I don't know why everyone is so surprised about that,"
he said regarding Zabriskie's strong climbing. "The guy got fifth in the Dauphine
- have you seen the mountains in the Dauphine? They make these look like a pimple!
I think you'll see Dave Zabriskie climb pretty consistently this year. He's
getting older, so maybe he doesn't have the flashy prologue times like he used
to, but he'll continue to climb better as he gets older."

Also climbing impressively was former race leader Fabian Cancellara (CSC),
who now sits in second by 13 seconds. This means that Astana will have its work
cut-out defending the race lead with the current world time trial champion,
and two former Tour de France time trial winners all within 21 seconds of Leipheimer.

"Millar time trials well too, and they are both in the same group!" said Vaughters.
"To me this was the real crucial stage. Now it comes down to the time trial,
and if it is still a few seconds then maybe those last stages will be tricky."

But Astana's Chris Horner, who was with Leipheimer on the early slopes of
Sierra Road, is confident that the team is up to the challenge, especially after
today's ride by Chechu Rubiera. "Rubiera was just un-believable!" he said. "Look
how we rode today - we didn't have the jersey but you knew going in that Levi
was the one and he had the virtual jersey on the road, so you knew we were going
to ride today."

Leipheimer also echoed the sentiments about Rubiera's work today. "Chechu
was phenomenal today," he said. "I raced with him before and I have never seen
him ride so well. He did an enormous amount of work over Mt. Hamilton and then
all the way down the descent and then again he pulled half way up Sierra Rd
until there were only five riders left by the time he was done.

When asked if he thinks the tour is won yet, Leipheimer replied; "Definitely
not. It's a step in the right direction but we have a long ways to go. I put
a lot of effort into today so I hope I recover."

On the domestic side, BMC continues to be riding an impressive race, carrying
the North America team representation. Scott Nydam, who rode solo forever in
yesterday's stage, was in the early break and driving it over the first three
KOM climbs. His work earned him the KOM jersey from team-mate Jackson Stewart.

How it unfolded

A new start city of Modesto started the third stage of the Tour of California,
as it climbed its way over five increasingly more difficult climbs. The stage
culminates with a tough ascent over Mt. Hamilton at more than 1250 meters (4,100
feet) and followed by the well-known Sierra Road climb just 30km from the finish
in downtown San Jose.

The new route through Del Puerto Canyon was an absolutely gorgeous ride through
rolling hills covered in green grass and grazing cattle. A gentle creek followed
the roadway for much of the early kilometres while the racing began to heat
up.

The first break of the day included Paul Martens (Rabobank), Cyril Lemoine
(Credit Agricole) and Scott Nydam (BMC). Apparently Nydam did not get enough
torture on a long solo ride in Stage 2. The field initially thought about catching
the break as it came to the only intermediate sprint, with an iPhone on the
line, but once that was settled, the peloton sat in and let the break get up
to five minutes on the opening slopes.

Back in the caravan, Kevin Lacombe (Kelly Benefits Strategies-Medifast) had
a moment of inattention and ended up crashing through the back of the CSC team
car, smashing the window to bits. While not the ideal way to get your name on
Cyclingnews, Lacombe did not suffer any major injuries, but did abandon
the race.

Up front Slipstream's Steven Cozza, who is suffering a lot of bad-luck crashes
this week - including one in today's opening kilometers, decided it would be
safer in the break and tried to bridge. After a long time in no-man's land,
he finally caught on. This break of four made it up and over the first three
KOMs, with Nydam taking the points and taking the KOM jersey away from his team-mate
Jackson Stewart.

Back in the peloton, Astana's Aaron Kemps was setting the pace, keeping the
break within reach. CSC and Slipstream also helped the effort, as did all eight
of the Bissell team.

As the kilometers clicked down to the feared Mt. Hamilton climb, the pace
picked up and riders shot out the back. Up front, with the writing on the wall,
the break disintegrated and only Martens was able to make it last, just about
five kilometres from the top. The temperatures plummeted and the fog settled
around the Lick Observatory on top of the climb, with riders' breath clearly
visible.

Chechu Rubiera (Astana) set a blistering pace that dismantled the rest of the
field, dwindling the lead group down to under 20. Over the top of the KOM it
was Rubiera followed by Jurgen Vandewalle (Quick Step), Alexandre Moos (BMC
Racing Team), Mauricio Alberto Ardila Cano (Rabobank), Iker Camano Ortuzar (Saunier
Duval-Scott), Bobby Julich (Team CSC), Levi Leipheimer (Astana), Christopher
Horner (Astana) and David Millar (Slipstream Chipotle).

The descent off Hamilton was the most technical descent in the entire race,
with rough roads and barely any straight sections longer than 100 meters. While
George Hincapie (High Road) had been dropped near the top of the climb, he was
able to catch back on and pass the lead group, building a lead of 45 seconds
on the way down. Hincapie held his lead all the way over to the Sierra Road
climb, and onto its tough 17 percent early slopes.

But the set-up by Rubiera and Horner for Leipheimer was too much, and the
lead group of now less than 15 caught and passed the former U.S. champion. On
the way up Sierra Road, two riders emerged and got a gap -- Robert Gesink (Rabobank)
was only matched by Leipheimer.

Gesink and Leipheimer went over the top followed by Zabriskie, Horner, Cano,
Vandewalle, and Thomas Peterson (Slipstream). On the descent a few more riders
joined in the chase of the leading two, including Slipstream's David Millar
and former race leader Fabian Cancellara (CSC).

The leaders came off the climb with a 45 second lead and worked together in
time trial mode to get to the finish. Like the previous two years, Leipheimer
was in a fight to stay alive to the finish - and again he was unable to convert
it into a stage win. But the sacrifice today was for something bigger, the race
leader's jersey.

Tomorrow's fourth stage is the identical one from Seaside along highway one
to San Luis Obispo. Look for Paolo Bettini (Quick Step) to either repeat his
win from last year, or to set-up team-mate Tom Boonen for another sprint win.
Cyclingnews will have uninterrupted coverage from the start to the finish,
beginning at 10:00 a.m. PST.